


Needing So Much More

by AkaShika



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Coming Out, Complicated Relationships, Confusion, Eating Disorders, Endgame Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter, Food Issues, Implied/Referenced Cheating, Mental Health Issues, Mental Instability, Multi, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Sexual Confusion, Sexual Tension, Slow Burn, Unrequited Crush
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-01
Updated: 2018-12-04
Packaged: 2019-07-23 08:13:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 20,675
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16155116
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AkaShika/pseuds/AkaShika
Summary: After a war Harry never expected to survive, he has to learn to live again.After a war Draco was on the wrong side of, he has to reevaluate everything he was ever taught.It was never going to be easy for either of them, but Narcissa has taken it upon herself to try and help them both, as much as she can.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Impossible Lies](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16076606) by [AkaShika](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AkaShika/pseuds/AkaShika). 



> Many thanks to my betas, [Jeldenil](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jeldenil/pseuds/Jeldenil) and [Keyflight790](https://keyflight790.tumblr.com/) both of whom have done fantastic work in helping to make this piece fit for public consumption. Any remaining mistakes are my own.

After the war, after his trial, Draco is sentenced to spend one year under house arrest. He would like to say it isn't a problem, but one year under house arrest means he can't sit his N.E.W.T.s, it means he can't even _try_ to build himself up again until he is nineteen. It means his life is as on hold as it has been since he was fifteen.

The first time he sees Potter after his trial is also the first time he dares to step outside the room that had become his sanctuary when the Dark Lord roamed the hallways of the Manor. He slowly makes his way towards the kitchen, a room he used to spent countless hours in during his childhood with his mother, regardless of what his father thought or said. He can hear his mother's soft voice speaking to someone behind the door. He hears a reply that is too low for him to catch the words, but enough to tell him that it isn't one of the remaining house-elves. He wonders if this person is the reason his mother had tried so hard to survive in a home where her husband cowered and her sister ruled during the war. He wonders how many of the men she had slept with had ever been brought into his home. He wonders if his father was as unaware as he pretended to be or if that was an act for his benefit.

He isn't expecting Potter to be sitting at the wooden table in the centre of the room, his pale hand clutching a cup of sweet tea like a lifeline. He isn't expecting to see his mother reach out and brush dark hair away from his forehead.

He must have made a noise, because one moment, Potter is focused only on his mother, the next, he glances over at the doorway — where Draco stands — and he shoves himself off the chair, spilling his tea and pushing Draco's mother away from him.

He glances between them, his eyes moving rapidly, before he manages to choke out a few words.

"I need to go. Thank you, Narcissa."

Draco hadn't known before that moment that the fireplace in the kitchen was connected to the Floo network.

"I'm so glad to see you, Draco," his mother says, even as he watches the now empty fireplace, wishing that what he had seen was a dream.

When he finally finds his voice, he doesn't greet his mother properly, nor does he return her platitudes.

"What the hell was Potter doing here?" he asks. He suppresses the flinch he feels at the harshness of his tone. His mother doesn't deserve his ire and he's aware of it. But the fact that Potter had been in his favourite room, in his home, feels like more of a violation to Draco than having the Dark Lord wandering through it.

He looks over at his mother, silently demanding an answer that will suffice. Her lips are pinched together, there are faint lines on her forehead, and she's looking at him like she's not sure who he is anymore.

He knows that look well, it's the one he gives himself when he looks in the mirror after all.

"Mr Potter stops by almost every day, Draco," his mother says. "He has done so since I was released."

"Why?" Draco's aware that his tone sounds whiny. It doesn't stop him wanting the answer - it doesn't stop him needing to know what the hell Potter hopes to do by visiting his house and his mother almost every day.

"Who knows?" His mother's voice is airy, completely unconcerned. He's heard it before when she's lying to his father.

"Mother, please."

Her demeanour changes from the empty society hostess that she's cultivated when she wants to be underestimated, to the mother who told him to do what he can, to survive, to live.

"Harry Potter saved our lives, Draco," she tells him. "Not only that, but he ensured neither of us would rot in Azkaban and now he is making sure we have what we need while we are not allowed to leave this hell-pit. If Harry wants to sit in this kitchen and drink tea and have me listen to him as he speaks, then that is what I will provide for him. I owe him not only my freedom but my son's life and he has asked for nothing in return."

"But why does he need to come here to have tea and someone to listen to him? He's got his own friends, he doesn't need to..." He knows what he was going to say, and he knows just as well how his mother would have taken it. He can tell from her icy expression that his mother knows precisely what he was going to say too. He's never seen that look aimed at him by his mother before.

"Your father and I made many mistakes when we were raising you, Draco, I've known that for a very long time. But if you think that love and friendship are finite resources, if you think there's only a certain amount that one person has, can give, or deserves, then we were more wrong than I was aware."

Draco looks down at his feet. He wants to tell his mother that it's not that he thinks that, that he's just so fed up and annoyed at Potter always having everything he wants, that Draco wants to keep one thing like it was before this whole mess with the Dark Lord, and the war, and his father in Azkaban. He wants to say that he thought his mother would always be his safe place, the one person he never needed to hide from. But now Potter's in the picture again and he just wants to sleep until this nightmare is over, even if he knows it never will be, not really.

He doesn't want to tell his mother that he still has nightmares about the last time Potter was in the Manor, that he dreams Potter died then and the Dark Lord caught him out in his lie and left him and his family to be tortured in ways he'd never imagined while awake.

He doesn't want to tell his mother that he's scared he'll wake up one day and find that he's been lost inside his own head for months. He doesn't want to tell her that the Dark magic that seeps through the hallways still makes him feel like the Dark Lord's defeat is a lie.

He knows that there was a reason Potter spared them both from Azkaban and he doesn't want to think about what he may have to pay for that later on down the line.

Draco feels the press of lips on his forehead. Even though he's taller than his mother now, he appreciates that at least this tiny slice of his childhood hasn't been changed and warped and damaged beyond repair. He also feels a little guilty. He knows that without Potter, his mother would have been alone in their home. He hasn't bothered to leave his room until today and his mother was here for a few weeks before he was released.

"I'm sorry," he says. The words feel like acid in his throat. One of his father's life lessons when he was younger was that it's always easier to give empty apologies than it is to mean it sincerely. Until now, Draco doesn't think he's ever felt remorse for something he's done while saying those words.

Narcissa runs fingers through Draco's hair and cups his cheek with one elegant hand. "He's never here for long, my love," she tells him. "An hour or so, two at the most. Usually just around lunch."

"I don't care," Draco says, despite the conversation they've just had that proves he does.

His mother smiles at him. "I was just letting you know in case you wish to avoid him. I know your relationship with Harry has been difficult since you were children and I wouldn't dream of forcing you upon each other."

It's not until he's sat at the table, minutes after his mother left the kitchen, with a cup of spiced hot chocolate in his hand, that he remembers what he was thinking before he knew it was Potter in the room. He wonders if Potter is his mother’s latest bed warmer.

* * *

Grimmauld Place is cold.

Harry knows that it's mostly just the effect of coming from the large, warm kitchen at Malfoy Manor, but still, Grimmauld Place feels cold and empty in a way that Harry doesn't want to understand.

Kreacher shuffles into the parlour where Harry stands staring at the fireplace and clears his throat.

"Master has been to see Miss Cissy again?"

His bullfrog voice is shaky and thin. He sounds almost nothing like the elf who would mutter complaints and slurs under his breath and Harry is worried that he'll have to bury another elf this year, that the weight of Kreacher's promise to Regulus was the only thing that kept him alive.

"Yes," Harry says. "Just like I did yesterday. Just like I will tomorrow." He turns to look at the elf and he can feel the pain that fills his smile. "Or maybe not, since Malfoy finally seems to have ventured out of his room."

"Kreacher doesn't know why that should stop Master. Master has never cared before."

"I only went because she needed company." Harry can't help but wonder how his life came to this, how the only people he really speaks with anymore are an old house-elf that resents him and a woman whose husband has tried to kill him, whose son has hated him for seven years. He doesn't know what to think of the fact that he still wants to go back tomorrow, even if Malfoy will hate him all the more for it.

He doesn't realise he's shivering until there's a crackle of flames igniting behind him and the soft scent of the seasoned cherry logs begins to flit through the room.

The pop of displaced air tells Harry that Kreacher has left and he sinks onto the sofa, his elbows resting on his knees as he tries to think about what he'll do with his days now that he'll likely not be visiting Narcissa.

He thinks he should probably fix up his house soon. Kingsley informed both him and Ron that if they wanted positions in the Aurors, they would need to wait a year.

"Take some time off," he'd said. "We'll still want you in a year or so. Look after yourselves for now. Look after your family. Think about going back to Hogwarts."

Ron had decided that Hogwarts was probably a good idea; that Hermione was going back too had probably helped, but Harry can't bear the idea of walking through the hallways where his friends and people he considered family died. He knows he'll be worse off for it in the end so he's stopping it before it begins.

He also doesn't think he could handle sharing a Common Room with Ginny anymore. He'd moved back into Grimmauld Place because of the awkwardness he'd felt around her, after all. He knows she didn't mean to make him feel that way, but whenever they'd caught each other's eye back at the Burrow, he could feel her disappointment. No matter what she'd said about them being completely different people after everything they'd gone through, he knows that she'd still wanted them to get back together.

As he sits on the sofa, he sighs and huffs. It seems like the sounds echo throughout the empty house, even though he knows that's not true. He's not sure what to do with himself at lunchtime in Grimmauld Place. The clock on the mantelpiece ticks loudly in the overwhelming silence. Each swing of the old, tiny pendulum tells Harry that he's wasting his time here. Whatever he was supposed to be doing instead is lost on him. With a final, put-upon sigh, Harry stands and drifts down towards the kitchen. Over his lifetime, he's missed too many meals with no choice but to endure the hunger. At this point, he knows he should eat when he can; even if it's just to give himself the energy he needs to make it through the day, even if he doesn't actually accomplish much else.

He lets Kreacher make him tea while he fixes himself a sandwich and forces himself to eat at the table. He tells himself that no matter how many people lived and ate at Grimmauld Place, not one of them would be happy if he survived the war only to ignore his own body's needs and get ill or worse. While he eats, slowly, fighting to swallow every bite, he tries to think about what he's going to do from now on.

Nothing sounds appealing, nothing sounds like the sort of thing he'd be willing to spend time on. Hermione says he's depressed and should probably see a mind healer. Harry just doesn't understand why the routine he'd made himself comfortable with has to change before he is ready to find his own feet.

He knows Narcissa is slowly trying to convince him that the fervour around him won't die down unless he actually goes out, unless he is seen in public. But Harry doesn't want to be around people who think they own him, like he's public property. If he's being honest with himself - which he probably should be since he isn't being honest with anyone else - even the thought of going out into Muggle London seems like too much.

The flip side of that, though, is that he really dislikes Grimmauld Place. The older he's gotten, the more he's realised that being trapped in this house is one of the things that caused Sirius to be so reckless and eventually resulted in his death. While Harry's aware that it isn't the house itself, that it's the memories Sirius had from his time here, he still blames the building. Malfoy Manor is an escape from this, even if he never ventures beyond the kitchen. And while Harry knows that he's welcome at the Burrow, Ginny and Molly and even Ron sometimes still make him feel like he gave up on his relationship with Ginny too soon, and sometimes the grief gets too much for him.

He doesn't blame them, God knows he was a miserable sod after Sirius died. Part of him feels like he's just lost so much over the last few years that it makes more sense for him to ignore his feelings. He wants to pretend he's not affected, rather than to feel like there was someone else he could have done something for and didn't. He remembers what it was like to feel like he was drowning in grief and rage and he's not eager to feel that way again. He remembers shouting at Dumbledore in his office the night Sirius died, telling him that the pain he was feeling wasn't worth being human. After the roller coaster of emotions that the locket horcrux brought out in him, after realising a few things about his own horcrux nature, Harry thinks that not feeling anything for a few weeks is his safest way forward.

He's pulled from his thoughts by the dainty tapping of an owl on his window. Despite thinking that he'd be all right with not having to visit Narcissa anymore, he feels his heart sink when he recognises the beautiful Barn Owl. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he can hear the thoughts that keep him up at night telling him, _"Of course she doesn't need you now that her son is back. No one needs you anymore. You've done what you were supposed to."_

A shiver runs through him as he tries not to think about how that voice is soft, sibilant, and overwhelmingly insidious.

He takes the letter from the owl and hands it a treat from the bowl on the windowsill.

He tries to pretend his hands aren’t shaking as he opens it.

  
  



	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many thanks to my betas, [Jeldenil](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jeldenil/pseuds/Jeldenil) and [Keyflight790](https://keyflight790.tumblr.com/) who both worked hard to cut my run-on sentences down and chased down all those errant commas

Narcissa sits in the kitchen the next day with her hands wrapped around a steaming cup of tea. She isn't sure if Harry will come today, not with Draco only having ventured out of his room yesterday. It's barely 9am though, and as she sips her tea, wondering when Draco will wake for the day — because she still hasn't called off the house-elf that she's set to keep an eye on him — she thinks about how she might convince her son to sit in the same room as Harry for more than five minutes. Or to get Harry not to jump up and run off as he had the day before, for that matter.

Draco's reaction yesterday tells her that it's an exercise in futility, but she hopes that her son will, at least with his father out of the way, listen to her a bit more often.

As much as she misses Lucius's company around the manor, she can't help but curse him for his foolishness. After the Dark Lord's rebirth, she hadn't spoken to him for a week. The only reason she gave in then was because Draco had come home from Hogwarts. She'd tried that summer, and the Christmas holidays that followed, to convince her son to listen to some of the words his father had spoken when he was a child. _"A Malfoy never bows"; "a Malfoy is never scared"; "a Malfoy learns from their mistakes"._ She tried to make Draco see that Lucius was doing all those things wrong with the Dark Lord and for once she hoped that his childhood lessons took hold.

With Lucius's arrest, however, Draco had been more inclined to follow in his father's footsteps, to get revenge on the one he thought was responsible, and Narcissa could do nothing but support him when his life was on the line.

Severus had done what he could, but Draco's pride had always been one of his weaknesses. Each holiday that year, he'd come home looking more pale, more gaunt, more tired than a sixteen-year-old had any reason to be. Each time he'd gone back to school, the Dark Lord had taken pains to tell Lucius and Narcissa that when he failed and they were dead, he'd be well looked after; at least until they all got bored of using him. Bellatrix had mentioned that during his occlumency lessons, she'd noticed things that told her he wouldn't be all that unresponsive should the Dark Lord bestow his attentions on Draco; that he spent a bit too much time looking at some of the other boys in his year rather than the girls. _“You know what I mean, Cissy,”_ she’d said.

That had made Narcissa furious, and even slightly grateful that Molly Weasley had killed her sister. That, in turn, had made her feel guilty, at least until she remembered that towards the end Bella was more like a rabid animal than the proud, pureblood witch she should have been.

She is brought from her musings about the war by the pop of an elf apparating in.

"Mistress wished to know when the young master was awake?"

"Is he up now, Pippy?"

"Yes Mistress," Pippy says. "The Young Master is showering right now. Should Pippy prepare his breakfast?"

"Yes, thank you," Narcissa says, taking a sip of her rapidly cooling tea. "But don't take it up for him. If he calls and asks where it is. Tell him it is waiting for him here and if he has a problem with that to come and see me."

Pippy frowns, but nods before she snaps her fingers in the direction of the cooker and begins to make some of Draco's favourite breakfast foods. It's almost an hour later before Draco pokes his head through the door of the kitchen. Narcissa is on her third cup of tea and is reading a letter from her sister. The beginning of their correspondence was tense, with Andromeda holding on to the anger and hatred that developed from the murders of her husband and daughter. One particular line in this still awkward letter stands out though.

 _I probably shouldn't be bothering you about this,_ Andromeda writes, _but I'm worried about Harry._

Narcissa folds the letter and sets it down near her cup, turning her attention to her son.

"Good morning, darling," she says as she stands and rounds the table to greet him.

Draco gives her a kiss on the cheek and has barely sat down before Pippy has his breakfast ready for him. He pushes his breakfast around the plate and Narcissa wonders if he's been doing that since he was released. The last few years have taken their toll on both of them; she finds it understandable if Draco isn't sure what to do with himself now that he's mostly free.

He eats his toast and most of his beans. A few mouthfuls of mushrooms are touched but most of what's on his plate is merely shifted from one side to the other. The slices of bacon are pushed to the edge of the plate.

"Are you all right, darling?" Narcissa asks when Draco finally stops pretending to eat and has Pippy take his plate away. She watches as Draco swirls his spoon through his tea, his gaze never lifting from the tabletop.

"I don't know what we're supposed to do now," he finally says. "Growing up, I always heard from father that one day we would take our rightful places, that Potter's defeat of the Dark Lord when he was a baby was luck, that it was never going to be repeated. But he did it and we were on the wrong side — publically, which father wasn't before — and now I don't know what we're supposed to do because it feels like everything I was taught was a lie."

Narcissa is silent for a few minutes. She knows, in part at least, what Draco is going through. When the Dark Lord vanished the first time round — officially because of his own powers, but she thinks it was more to do with Lily Potter — she had to confront the fact that her husband and her family were all wrong. That she was wrong. While she never spoke out against either her husband or her family, and while she acted like the dutiful mother and wife she was supposed to be, her beliefs after the first war underwent a radical shift. That was one part of the reason that she was so upset with Lucius going straight back to the Dark Lord the moment he called.

"How am I supposed to ever show my face again, even after I'm allowed out?" Draco asks, and there is a hint of petulance in his tone that Narcissa hasn't heard for years.

"What you do, Draco, is learn from your mistakes. You know now that we were wrong, but that does not mean you know what is right. You must do what you can to learn what we should have taught you as a child."

Draco drops the spoon onto the table and huffs; his irritability is going to last a long time if Narcissa doesn't snap him out of it soon. When he was a child, both her and Lucius rewarded these moments of impatience, if only to break him out of the sulk he would enter into. Narcissa knows that not only is that no longer an option, but it's part of the reason Draco is acting this way now. Not for the first time that morning, Narcissa regrets how she and Lucius raised their son.

Lucius had always taught Draco that money could solve all his problems. Narcissa, however unassuming it had been at the time, had taught him to listen to his father no matter what. As much as her own pride wants to place every ounce of blame onto her husband's shoulders, she knows she can't. Unlike Lucius, however, she intends to learn from her mistakes and fix them, if she can.

"What is your problem with the sentence passed down upon you, Draco?" Narcissa asks. "Do you feel it was too harsh? That you should have been given more leeway because of your age?"

She watches Draco flinch away from her words and knows she's being far too harsh right now, but coddling Draco is what got him into this mess in the first place.

"I didn't have a choice." His voice is quiet and Narcissa's heart _aches_.

"I know that, sweetheart. And so do the Wizengamot, for they all feel that your only choice was between a dying man and a megalomania." She reaches across the table and takes one of his hands between her own. "But they are also of the opinion that while the only choices you had were equally terrible, and while you were coerced into doing what you did, you still committed those crimes."

"If I had gone to Dumbledore, he would have killed you and Father," Draco says. "You would never have had the chance to get out and I would have lost you both." Narcissa watches as her son blinks rapidly, trying to dispel the sheen of tears in his eyes. "They think I should have trusted Severus and asked him for help. How was I supposed to do that when none of us knew he wasn't on our side?"

"Your Aunt Bella knew," Narcissa says.

"Aunt Bella was a psychopath who was scared that Severus was going to usurp her position. She didn't know. She just wanted his reputation damaged so badly he'd never come back from it."

Narcissa can't help but smile at her son for that. He'd always been good at reading people; had Severus or Bella ever tried to teach him Legilimency as well as Occlumency, he'd have picked it up incredibly quickly.

"Even the so-called 'Good Guys' didn't know whose side Severus was on until Potter shouted it out during..."

He trails off and his face slowly falls blank. Narcissa rounds the table in a second and holds him close, wishing she had been able to protect him better. She presses her lips to his forehead and hums the tune of his favourite lullaby from when he was a child.

* * *

Harry bites at his thumbnail as he stares at the envelope sat unassumingly on the coffee table in his parlour. He knows he should probably open it, although he knows who it's from and probably even what it says. He knows he's avoiding his responsibilities and that one day someone is going to call him out on it. He knows this letter, probably the third this week, is from Andromeda asking if he's going to come and visit Teddy so that they can get used to each other.

He can't help but wonder what it says about him that he was more than willing to become Teddy's godfather when he thought he wouldn't survive the war. Now that it's over and he's turning into a bit of a recluse, the idea of having another person relying on him is almost enough to send him scrambling back up the stairs wanting to lock himself in his room and never come out.

The clock on the mantle chimes the hour, and Harry is almost relieved that it's noon. He runs a hand through his hair, making it stick up in every direction and scowls at himself before brushing it all forward again with one hand.

On one hand, he really wants to go to Malfoy Manor right away. He wants to hide in the warm kitchen, with Narcissa there to talk him through his little crisis, even if he doesn't follow her advice. He wants to spend time with the one person who doesn't expect anything from him.

On the other hand, Malfoy might be there. Malfoy clearly wasn't too happy to find Harry sitting in his kitchen when he got there yesterday and the last thing Harry wants is to let himself come between Malfoy and his mother; especially if he needs her as much as Harry does. Harry has other options, even if none of them seem very appealing to him right now. Malfoy doesn't.

If someone had told him five years ago that Harry would be thinking about not doing something because it would hurt Malfoy, Harry would have laughed in their face and done it anyway.

"Kreacher," Harry calls. When the elf appears, Harry kneels down in front of him. "Can you bring me the letter Narcissa sent yesterday please?"

He doesn't want to intrude and he's read the letter enough over the last day to know what it says, but Narcissa's words on the page have their own comfort.

Harry takes the parchment that's been flattened by Harry's constant rereading of it and he brushes his fingers over the elegant lines of Narcissa's signature.

_Dear Harry,_

_I understand why you left so quickly earlier and I appreciate that you decided to give Draco a chance to get used to you having been here. My son is never easy to be around when he's caught off-guard, and I think your presence was not something he ever expected. I have spoken to him about why you were here and while I don't think he likes it, he does understand that without you, I'd have been alone for too long. I'd like to say he would thank you for keeping me company, but we both know Draco too well for you to believe that._

_I didn't write this letter in order to tell you Draco's opinion. I'm writing it to let you know that you will always be welcome in our home. You have given me hope for the future. It was your actions that saved me and my son from Azkaban. For that alone, you will always have a place in my home, whether that is at Malfoy Manor or elsewhere._

_I enjoy our lunches far too much for you to call them off now that Draco is around more. I hope that his reaction has not put you off._

_I look forward to seeing you tomorrow, at our usual time._

_All my love,_

_Narcissa_

Harry very pointedly ignores her valediction at the end of the letter. He knows it's there. He remembers his stomach flipping when he read it and he's still not sure why. He knows he's never felt like this over Ginny, or Hermione, and he knows Narcissa probably meant it in a motherly way, like Mrs. Weasley would say it. But he doesn't feel for Mrs. Weasley the way he feels for Narcissa, even if he doesn't have the words for how he feels. The closest he has for it is admiration. He remembers feeling similarly about Sirius, but it is still distinctly different.

It takes a few minutes for Harry to realise he's beginning to get lost in his head again. He's been doing that far too often lately. He shakes his head, as if to physically clear it of his thoughts, and decides he's better off just heading over to the Manor.

He doesn't want to think about how Narcissa always makes sure he stays in the present. He doesn't think about how he always feels better after talking with her. He doesn't want to think.

He Floos through and for the first time, the kitchen is empty when he arrives. Harry has just cleared himself of soot and ash when one of the elves pops in to the room with a crack.

"Mister Potter, sir," the tiny elf says. "Mistress says Tinny is to make you comfortable. Mistress is running late but says that Mister Potter is to put his silly thoughts about leaving out of his head and that she will be here soon."

Harry blinks rapidly and wonders how transparent he must be if Narcissa knows that he would think of leaving if she wasn't here. With a small smile, he sits in his usual chair on the far side of the table. "Can't disappoint your mistress if she's given me orders like that, can I, Tinny?" he says as the little elf places a cup of tea in front of him along with a bowl of sugar cubes.

"Mister Potter is learning," Tinny tells him.

Harry isn't sure if Tinny is male or female; all he knows about the elf is that they're young, even by elf standards. They only started working properly during Harry's fourth year and Narcissa did everything she could while Voldemort was in residence to keep Tinny away from anyone who wasn't a Malfoy.

Harry doctors his tea to how he prefers it, far too much sugar and not enough milk, and sips at it while he waits. Narcissa arrives after just a few minutes and Harry stands to greet her, placing his hand on her waist when she kisses his cheek and drinking in the calm she seems to exude.

He allows Narcissa to run her hands through his messy hair and, though he would never admit it, he relishes in the faint scratch of her nails against his scalp. When she wraps her arm around his shoulders and guides them back to their seats, Harry sits, feeling more content than he has all morning.

When Narcissa smiles at him, he feels his stomach flip again and he thinks he can place words to the feeling now, though he doesn't really want to.

The words echo in his mind regardless of his own wishes.

_"I could easily love this woman."_

  



	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many thanks, as always, to my betas, [Jeldenil](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jeldenil/pseuds/Jeldenil) and [Keyflight790](https://keyflight790.tumblr.com/)

Now that Harry has had the realisation, now that the words have been given a shape in his mind, he wants to think about what they could mean. He doesn't have a chance, he knows that much. For one thing, Narcissa is married. For another, Harry is younger than her only child, if only by a few months. He listens to the soft lilt of her voice, taking in her words as she tells him about Malfoy, about the ideas he put forth that morning. She looks proud of him, Harry thinks, and, not for the first time, he wonders if his parents would be proud of him too. It's not something he'll ever know for certain, no matter how many people who knew his parents tell him they would be.

He feels his throat tighten as he tries to hold back tears, and he only notices that he's failed miserably when Narcissa wraps her arms around his shoulders and hugs him.

"Oh, darling," she says as she strokes his hair. She makes soft, soothing noises that could be words but hold no meaning. She doesn't shush him. She doesn't tell him not to cry. She simply holds him until he settles somewhat and brushes her thumb across his cheeks, wiping away the remnants of his tears.

Harry closes his eyes and desperately tries to calm his breathing. When he finally feels closer to normal, he looks at Narcissa and says, "Thank you." He thinks she understands, at least in part, that he's not just thanking her for calming him through this latest bout of tears, but for all the times she's been there for him since her release.

Tinny brings them a fresh pot of tea and places a plate of shortbread biscuits on the table between them.

"How is Draco?" Harry asks. He still stumbles over using Malfoy's first name in conversation sometimes, but he can hardly call him 'Malfoy' to his mother. “Really, I mean.”

"He's struggling somewhat," Narcissa says. "He grew up all but assured of his place in the world but now the world has changed and he's not so sure where he fits in anymore."

"He looked thinner than I expected him to," Harry says. "He hasn't put on any weight since he came home from Azkaban."

"Don't worry too much about Draco, Harry. He's still getting used to being free again, or as free as he can be." Narcissa picks up a finger of the shortbread and chews it daintily. "Now, tell me about your plans for the rest of the day."

He doesn't want to lie to her. He wants to tell her his plans to visit Teddy and Andromeda or to go out into London and shop for things for his home, but Grimmauld Place doesn't feel like home to him and the longer he can put off visiting Andromeda, the safer he feels. He doesn't want to lie to her, but telling her the truth seems so hard right now.

"My magic's being weird," he says instead. "I can't control it properly anymore. My spells are either too strong or not strong enough."

"You've been through a war, Harry," Narcissa says as she lies one hand over his. "Things are going to be difficult for everyone for a while yet, and you're no different."

Harry nods in agreement, but Narcissa's touch on his hand distracts him slightly. He doesn't think about his magic and how strange it's being; instead, he thinks about what it would be like to lace his fingers with Narcissa's, to kiss her fingertips. He feels a blush rising and he looks from their hands to Narcissa's face. The soft smile that graces her features reminds Harry of the way she'd smiled when Draco entered the room the day before.

He's never wanted a moment to last forever before just so he can stretch out a fantasy.

Predictably, the moment is broken far too soon for Harry's taste. Malfoy clears his throat as he stands in the doorway, one eyebrow arched as he looks between Harry and his mother.

"Potter," he says, by way of a greeting as he walks into the room and settles himself on the other side of the table. "Mother."

"Hello Darling," Narcissa says as she squeezes Harry's hand once more before letting go.

"Mal—Draco," Harry says, he knows he's blushing more now. He knows the idea of Malfoy catching him and Narcissa during an intimate moment and what he was thinking before is to blame. Embarrassment makes him feel like his cheeks and ears are on fire.

"Am I... interrupting?" Malfoy asks and Harry thinks Malfoy is aware of what was just going through his head.

"Of course not," Narcissa says. "Are you joining us for lunch?"

"Yes," Malfoy says as he looks at Harry. "Unless Potter doesn't want me to, in which case I'd be happy to wait until he's gone to eat, since you won't allow the elves to bring me food anymore."

Harry can feel the challenge in his gaze and as much as he wants to tell Malfoy to piss off, as much as he wants to say this is his only time with Narcissa, he can't. It also means that anything he was planning on saying to her or vice versa will be put on hold for a while and that, Harry thinks, is more than worth putting up with Malfoy for an hour. He hates that he’s grateful for that.

Harry forces a smile to his lips. "I'm not going to run you out of your own kitchen, Draco," he says.

Harry isn't sure why he feels close to tears all of a sudden, he thinks it has something to do with how he feels like he's intruding again. It feels too similar to the way he feels at the Burrow. He pushes the thought, the feeling, to the back of his mind when Pippy and Tinny place a plate of sandwiches and pots of tea and hot chocolate on the table. He tries to ignore the awkwardness he feels as Narcissa, ever the expert in social situations, tries to draw him into conversation with her and Malfoy. He smiles politely when Narcissa talks about how Draco used to be as a child and remembers that this is the same person who had wished one of his best friends dead when they were twelve.

He agreed to stay, he wanted his time with Narcissa to last, but now each second feels like a lifetime and he can't wait to go home.

Harry looks over at Narcissa once again, and watches her as she speaks. When she's talking about Draco, he realises, she seems freer. She uses her hands to gesture as she speaks and her eyes seem to be cleared of the grief from the war. She laughs as she tells a story about how Malfoy used to fly his broom down the hallways, relying on the elves to catch him before he flew down the stairs.

Harry remembers the letter his mother sent to Sirius after his first birthday, the one he only ever found a part of because Snape had taken the other half, and he remembers the photograph of himself as a baby flying into his father. He wonders if his life would have been like that if Voldemort hadn't killed his parents.

His own grief, his own sadness about everything he's lost over the course of his life threatens to overwhelm him once more and he knows he needs to leave. Two delicate chimes of a clock somewhere announces the hour, and Harry stands slowly.

"I need to go," Harry says standing slowly. "Thank you, again, Narcissa."

* * *

When Potter finally leaves, it's with a long hug and a soft kiss for his mother. He rolls his eyes as Potter brushes his lips across Narcissa's cheek and thanks her, for her time or her attention, Draco's not sure. All he knows is that he doesn't like it. He taps his fingers impatiently against the tabletop and wishes to Merlin and Nimue both that his mother and Potter don't actually have some sort of sordid affair going on.

He knows his parents only share a Platonic love, one formed from the struggles of having to bear and raise a child in a marriage that was arranged. He's seen his father sneak women towards the Floo early in the morning when he was supposed to still be in bed. He even remembers being fourteen years old and trying to sneak into his father's study only to find his father and Pansy's mother fornicating on the desk. Of course, those things stopped happening during the summer before his fifth year, and while his father was away almost as much as he was home, Draco knew it wasn't because of his affairs, but because of the Dark Lord.

During his first days imprisoned in Azkaban before his trial, Draco had thought about how he would love to travel back in time. He wanted to be able to shout at his father and tell him they were going to lose, that he would destroy everything their name stood for in the world and ask him if it would be worth it. It hadn't taken long though for him to realise that if he did that, then his father would drag him in front of the Dark Lord and let him root through his mind until he had all the information he needed about Potter and his defeat.

Draco hated that they'd lost but by the time of the Final Battle, he was more willing to lose than to put up with a life under the Dark Lord's rule. Either way, he knew he wouldn't be close to the top of the pile. At least if Potter won, he stood a chance of making it to middle-aged.

He also hates that Potter is now interrupting the calm that's slowly making the manor feel more like it used to. There's still Dark magic seeping through the walls in the floors upstairs but no one ever came to the kitchen and so it's free of the taint that makes his nightmares worse and his waking hours almost unbearable.

His mother is watching him carefully and Draco realises that he's been lost in his own thoughts for too long once again.

"Are you alright, Draco?" she asks, and Draco thinks she picked up on his slight anger at having stories of his childhood told to his schoolyard rival.

"Fine," Draco replies gruffly. "That wasn't as painful as I thought it would be." He stops to consider his words for a moment; he doesn't want to anger his mother, not when she's the only other person in this house and probably the only person other than Potter he's going to see for a while. "Did I actually interrupt anything when I came in?" he finally asks.

"Nothing that can't wait until tomorrow," Narcissa says and once again, Draco knows it for the lie it is. This time, however, he doesn't want to call his mother out on it.

"I should probably thank Potter tomorrow," he says instead. "He's kept you company while I've been shutting myself away."

The smile Narcissa gives him is incredible, and Draco feels awful that the suggestion was all it took to make his mother smile that way. The intrusive thought that follows that feeling tells him that it's no wonder she and Potter get along, even if they're not sleeping together — although, judging by the way Potter looked at her, he doesn't think he would find it a hardship — Potter's almost always had a kind word for people as long as they didn’t annoy him.

As he makes his decision to thank and possibly apologise to Potter, Draco finds himself exhausted. He gives his mother a kiss on the cheek, deliberately not thinking about how it's similar to what Potter did, and hugs his mother tightly.

"I love you, Draco," She whispers as he holds her. "You will always be the most important person in the world to me."

He's always known that, of course. He's been less sure of it where his father's concerned over the last few years but no matter what his parents have done to others, he's always known they love him, even when they don't say it that often.

"I need to rest," Draco says. "I'll see you for dinner?"

"Pippy's making salmon," Narcissa tells him and he can't help but smile a little.

The walk back to his bedroom chills him and wipes any momentary happiness out of his body. The kitchen is on the first floor of the manor, but set back far enough that the awful feeling of evil never reaches it. It's the only place on both the first floor and the second floor that doesn't hold the awful feeling of despair that comes from countless muggles and muggle-borns, half-bloods and blood traitors, who were tortured for the amusement of the Death Eaters. Draco's never been more glad that the Family wing on the third floor was tied to wards that would only accept Malfoys that were of blood or bound, but he wasn't sure that the Dark Lord wouldn't rip them down anyway and claim the bedrooms there for his own use and for the use of his most loyal.

When he finally arrives in his bedroom, Draco is shaking. He feels like the Dark magic would never go away and every time he walks through the quagmire of magical residue, he feels sick. He sinks to the floor with his back against the door and tries to breathe.

He reminds himself that the Dark Lord is dead. Potter, who has been in his kitchen, drinking tea with his mother, is proof of that.

He reminds himself that there are only ten months before he is allowed to hold a wand again and use his magic.

He struggles a little to remember good — or even just slightly better — things that have happened in the last two years, but stolen kisses with people who were just as terrified in the Slytherin dorms had helped at Hogwarts, so Draco thinks of that.

He thinks about Theo and Pansy. One kiss with Pansy was enough to let them both know that whatever marriage plans their parents had for them would fail, but Theo...

Kissing Theo had been like standing in the sun for the first time again after a long winter. It had felt right and easy and simple during a time when nothing else did. There were no fanciful stories of being in love, no wanting to run away together. It wasn't perfect, but it was a brilliant way to forget about what was waiting for them outside the gates of Hogwarts.

At least until Draco remembers words spat at him from Death Eaters, that this would be all he was good for in the end.

Draco stumbles to his bed with tears in his eyes. He didn't noticed them before and he wonders if it is thinking of Theo that has caused them, or something else. He falls face first onto his pillows and drags his duvet over him, hiding himself in feathers bound in fabric and hoping he will sleep without nightmares.

That is the first time he dreams of Harry Potter since the end of the war.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many thanks, as always to my betas, [Jeldenil](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jeldenil/pseuds/Jeldenil) and [Keyflight790](https://keyflight790.tumblr.com/).

Harry dreams of fire and death. Not his own, that would be too easy. He dreams of Malfoy, his hand slipping from Harry's in the Room of Requirement; he dreams of Narcissa, not having a chance to lie to Voldemort because of her anguish for the loss of her son. He dreams of Ron, Hermione, Neville and everyone else who was at the last battle dying in flashes of green and cackles of laughter.

Harry wakes covered in sweat and tears, gasping for breath as he tries to fight through panic. He manages to roll to the side of the bed before he vomits spectacularly over the old, worn rug that Kreacher insisted on putting there. His eyes follow the splashes where they land and he tries to bring himself back to the present by focusing on something he hadn't really seen before the war. Unlike a lot of the furniture and decoration in Grimmauld Place, the rug is light, the cream background is bordered with entwined roses and it's absolutely not something Harry would have imagined to be here, given what he knew of Sirius's mother.

He finds it incredible that such a small thing helps. His breathing slows and becomes more regular, and while he can still feel his heart racing, he doesn't feel like he's running a marathon anymore. When he calls for Kreacher, his voice is hoarse. He feels bad for using the elf; he thinks Kreacher should be able to enjoy his retirement. Harry's learned over the last few months that if he doesn't give Kreacher orders occasionally, the elf will do whatever he wants anyway, often getting under Harry's feet as he does so.

While Kreacher cleans off the rug, Harry lies back against his pillows and stares at the window. The light outside is the grey of dawn in London and Harry wonders how he can be more exhausted from waking up than he was going to sleep. His nightmares, the panic attack, both are contributing to it and he's aware of that, but at least he slept for almost six hours.

"Master will need to move if Master wishes for Kreacher to change his sheets," Kreacher says, and Harry thinks he might as well get up and prepare for the day anyway. He knows he won't fall back asleep again, not with the scent of cursed fire in his memory.

He heads to the bathroom and turns on the shower, inspecting himself in the mirror for a moment while the water heats. The skin around his eyes looks tight and is tinted a purplish-brown, his hair is getting longer again and the thought that he'll just keep it that way passes through his mind. He'd only cut his hair after the war because Molly offered to do it, and because Ginny preferred it shorter. Now though, he'd probably have to go somewhere to get it cut and Harry, for all that he was raised in the Muggle world, no longer feels comfortable there.

He stares at the person in the mirror until it fogs over with steam and the only thing he can see is a blur of black hair.

When he's in the shower, he doesn't move for a while. He lets the almost-too-hot water pour over his head and down his back and chest and he takes a moment to just breathe in a way he hasn't for a while. Hermione had called it Mindfulness. She said that focusing on something he was doing and doing it with the intention of doing nothing else would help. Harry hadn't really understood at the time, but he did find that breathing and concentrating on it helped when things got too much.

When he feels a little calmer, when he feels slightly less exhausted, Harry cleans himself up. He knows he has things that need to be done today and his own opinion of it is that if he spends his already ruined morning doing all the things he hates, he'll be able to spend his afternoon when he gets back from Malfoy Manor sleeping.

Replying to Andromeda's letter from the day before is one thing he needs to do. Even if he doesn't visit her, he needs to keep in contact with her. He sits at the table in the kitchen and tries to ignore the ghosts of the past as he sips at his coffee and reads the letter.

There are the things Harry expected to be there, mentions of Teddy and how he's growing and the newest thing he's done; Andromeda saying that Harry needs to get out more. There's a mention of Narcissa, which surprises Harry.

_ "I've been in touch with my sister," _ Andromeda has written.  _ "It's easier to find forgiveness for her now. She was raised to go along with our father and her husband like a good wife and it took losing my child and husband to realise that she was too young to stand up to either of them before the war began in earnest." _

The rest of the letter is what Harry thought it would be: an invitation to visit whenever he wants; a casual plea for him to try to get to know Teddy. Harry wants to rage at the guilt Andromeda makes him feel but instead, he picks up a quill and writes a bland reply with a promise to visit soon.

He knows, and he suspects Andromeda will know, that he likely won't be keeping that promise.

Harry rubs his hands across his face, fighting back feelings he doesn't want to acknowledge, before he folds his letter and stuffs it into an envelope. He knows what he wants, and he knows how impossible it is, but being alone, being normal, being  _ just Harry,  _ was never on the cards for his life. He attaches his letter to Andromeda to the Short-Eared owl he bought just days after the final Battle (an owl he still hasn't named, still doesn't acknowledge as his own, because  _ Hedwig _ was his owl) and sends it off before leaving the kitchen.

As is normal for him, he sits in his parlour and tries desperately not to think. He sits for hours trying to put his intrusive thoughts out of his mind.

He tries not to think about how the voices that tell him he's worthless, that he's taking advantage of people, that he shouldn't even be here, start sounding a little more real every day.

He listens to the clock as it chimes for each hour that passes.

Nine.

Ten.

Eleven.

The last hour drags. As if the clock knows he's waiting for twelve chimes and is denying him out of spite.

He watches as the pendulum ticks back and forth until  _ finally _ the first of twelve chimes sound. Harry is on his feet and in the fireplace before the third.

He Floos out before he hears the sixth.

He exits into a kitchen that has become his sanctuary, but instead of Narcissa, or even a house-elf, he is faced with Draco Malfoy.

He likes to think he wouldn't wish ill upon people who don't deserve it, but at this moment, in this place, Harry wants Malfoy to continue to be reclusive, for him to never have left his bedroom.

Harry draws in a breath as he exits the fireplace. He shouldn't be this nervous, not after weeks of seeing Narcissa, not after weeks of expecting Malfoy to finally leave his room. The fact that this is the first time that Malfoy has been there to greet him makes Harry feel more like an intruder than ever before. He wants to turn back, but he's never run away from Malfoy before, he doesn't want to start now.

"Malfoy," Harry says as cordially as he can.

"Potter." It seems to Harry that Malfoy's also trying to be on his best behaviour, that more than anything else so far puts Harry on edge. "I want to thank you," he says.

Harry stumbles slightly before catching himself on the edge of the table. "What? Why?"

Malfoy waits for Harry to sit before he continues. "For visiting my mother while I was... indisposed." He sits down and the way he's looking at Harry makes him feel like he's under a microscope. "You kept her company and helped even if you didn't need to. So, thank you."

Harry's not sure what to say to that. He thinks Malfoy is being genuine at least. "Nice to be useful, eh?" he says after a few more awkward seconds pass. He wants to laugh at the feeling he gets from saying that. Harry's never felt more useless in his life.

* * *

Draco hides his fury under the veneer of a calm and cordial host. He had tried being kind, tried telling Potter he appreciated what he'd done, and Potter had thrown his gratitude back in his face.

He waits, not so patiently, for his mother to arrive. As soon as she gets there, he'll be free to leave and seethe about Potter's presumptuousness alone, maybe in his room, or, if he can bear the dark magic for a while, the library.

His mother arrives with a smile, looking beautiful as always, and Draco stands, first to greet her, then to leave. He doesn't make it through the kitchen door before Potter rises to greet her, too and his fury grows as he watches Potter hold her waist as he kisses her cheek.

He would have loved to make his exit as dramatic as possible. It was something Draco thrived on in school after all, being dramatic. Instead he closes the door with a soft  _ click _ and storms off, his potential audience unaware of him.

The hallway leading to the library is lined with portraits of the older heads of the family, from Draco's grandfather, Abraxas, all the way back to the first Lucius Malfoy. The portraits have been still and silent though since the Dark Lord made his base at the manor.

The last time any of them spoke, Grandfather Abraxas had made a comment to Aunt Bella about how he had been glad that Draco's father had chosen Narcissa over her. He'd said he would much rather Lucius have a wife who knew when to hold her tongue than one who shouted every thought out for the world, even if it had taken her far too long to provide the family with an heir.

Aunt Bella had raged and screamed and said she was glad she'd never had children so she could dedicate herself to their lord. Abraxas had asked how a rabid beast was supposed to help and the Dark Lord had cursed him into stillness and silence forever.

Draco's great-grandfather is the first one to speak in over two years. Draco’s alarm is palpable when he hears the voice in a corridor that’s only been filled with screams since that curse was cast.

"You are not the eldest living Malfoy, Draco," he says, still cautious not be heard by anyone else.

"No," Draco replies.

"The Manor recognises you though. What happened to my grandson?"

"Father's been incarcerated," Draco says. It's the first time he's had to tell anyone about his father. "For a minimum of two years but it will likely be for longer."

"And the Dark Lord?" His question is filled with a hope Draco has never heard from his ancestors. "The Darkness that fills the hallways is leaving. The Manor is trying to fix itself. Has he just left, or is he..."

Draco answers with a single word, one that sends the portraits that can still move and talk into rapture. "Dead."

Draco turns and heads to his bedroom, rather than the library. It's not that he doesn't understand why the portraits are happy that the Dark Lord is gone from their home, but it never affected them the way it did the people who lived there. They're not even real people anymore, just the imprints of a personality, yet they rejoiced as much as the living about the news.

Draco finds himself wondering how they'd have reacted if the Dark Lord had just made his base elsewhere. He also wonders what his great-grandfather meant when he said that the Manor was trying to repair itself.

He's never thought of his own home as sentient before, though he knows that dense concentrations of magic can push a building into sentience. It was supposedly what happened to Hogwarts, after all. He wonders why his father never mentioned it before, or if he even knew.

That is something he can research, at least, while he's stuck here. There's bound to be volumes on sentient buildings in the family library. He just needs to find the will to go there and start his search.

Finding the will to do anything is so incredibly hard for Draco right now. He's never felt this despondent about anything, not even when his parents’ lives were on the line, if he couldn't find a way for Death Eaters to get into the castle.

Back then, he feverishly tried to consume any sort of texts that would help him, would give him a hint. His Charms and Transfiguration skills had gotten brilliant, just not in anything he would have been tested on that year.

Draco has never wished that he was a child again so much before. He misses the innocence he had during his childhood, where he knew, out of all his friends, he was the best. He wants to be ten again, before his father fell from grace in his own eyes, before school taught him that there were people who didn't think his family was the greatest, and most of all, before the Dark Lord had even thought about returning.

Now, he has no friends, the only person he sees is his mother — he's decidedly not thinking about Potter at this point — his father is in prison, and the rest of their world wishes Draco was there too.

The worst part about the last few months, Draco thinks, is how most of his thoughts are fleeting in nature. He can't concentrate on anything for very long, except the things he doesn't want to think about. As a result, Draco often finds himself thinking about Potter. No matter how much he tries to put him out of his mind, Draco fixates on him. He thinks about Potter in his kitchen, and Potter and his mother, and he thinks about how Potter's magic seems to have a life of its own.

He's sure his mother has noticed it too, but outside the kitchen, in the dim, dark hallway that leads to the main house, it's beginning to feel Lighter again. The Dark magic never really reached his mother's little haven, but the house-elves were responsible for that.

Draco wonders whether if Potter ever ventured out of the kitchen, it would help chase the remnants of the Dark Lord from their home more quickly.

Maybe he'll ask him, one day.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All my thanks, as always go to my betas, [Jeldenil](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jeldenil/pseuds/Jeldenil) and [Keyflight790](https://keyflight790.tumblr.com/) And to everyone else who's reading and enjoying this.

September slips into October and from there into November without Harry really noticing. He acknowledges that the nights are longer and the days are colder, but that means nothing to him when he doesn't really go anywhere or do anything. He tries to write to Andromeda every week. He doesn't always manage it; sometimes he just doesn't want to do anything and it feels like a chore to get out of bed. On those days, it's only the promise of hot tea and sweet cakes from the Malfoy's elves that have him up and about before noon.

His slight crush on Narcissa, once he figured out what it was, hasn't gotten any better or worse. He still finds himself thinking that she is quite possibly the most beautiful person in the world; he still finds himself a bit breathless when the light catches her hair as they sit in the warm kitchen of Malfoy Manor.

Malfoy also seems to be getting better. The anger he seemed to have at Harry for invading his home has calmed to barely a simmer and while they're never alone, not since he thanked Harry a few days after leaving his room, the tension between them has relaxed considerably. Harry still thinks Malfoy knows about Harry’s thoughts about Narcissa, but he hasn't said anything. Until he does, Harry will pretend it doesn't matter.

Ron and Hermione write and let him know the latest news from Hogwarts. Hermione writes every week but Harry's never replied. He thinks about what a waste of parchment it would be just to tell Hermione that he's done nothing all week yet again. Ron's letters are no more often than once a month and Harry thinks that's partly because he feels the same way as Harry, that nothing out of the ordinary is really happening and there's no reason to be kept up to date.

That's not true though, Harry thinks. It's not really normal for any of them to be attending school and not worrying about the Dark Lord or their families. But Harry's not at school, and he doesn't have a family to worry about. All he has is a big, dark, empty house, a decrepit house-elf, and a mind that won't shut up for long enough for him to do anything worthwhile.

The thoughts that plagued him after the war, telling him he was useless, haven't left. He still thinks every day about how he's infringing on Narcissa and Malfoy's hospitality by going there and eating and drinking with them, like he's a friend of the family. Every few days, he'll talk himself out of going for lunch only to find himself spinning out of the fireplace and into the kitchen, wondering where the hell his stubborn nature went.

He still wakes from nightmares almost every night and his panic attacks are getting worse, instead of better. Harry tries to eat more but he can never handle more than a few mouthfuls at a time unless he's distracted. He's thinner than he's ever been and is shivering almost constantly. He's also more than aware that if Narcissa ever saw him out of the bundles of clothes he wraps himself in, or if Mrs. Weasley saw him at all, he'd be shipped off to St. Mungo's for potions, or sat at a table and fed until he felt like his stomach would explode. His hair is still longer than ever, but now it's thin too, and limp. It doesn't try to rebel and escape the hold of the hair tie he throws it into every day and the way it hangs in his face when it's loose reminds him a lot of Severus Snape.

Even with all of this, it still takes him until the middle of November to admit to himself that he's ill.

He finally accepts it when he's standing in the shower trying to not think, running his hands over his ribs and counting each one, staring at a patch of skin that's grown a downy coat. He bends and hugs his knees. He doesn't know how to help himself and he doesn't know who to ask for the help he needs. He cries.

* * *

Narcissa's autumn passes with quiet worry about people she cannot help. 

Draco is, as always, at the top of her thoughts, but Harry is not far beneath him. While Draco has finally began to gain weight after the stress of the last few years, Harry hasn't and that more than anything worries Narcissa. She has spoken with Andromeda, by letter, if not in person, and Andromeda is also worried. Harry is keeping in contact but he still hasn't visited and in her grief, Andromeda blames herself.

Narcissa has tried, but she fails to see her sister's logic in this. But then, Andromeda has always been a bit more like Bellatrix than either of them ever wished to admit. Emotions ruled both of them far more than anything else. It is the reason Bellatrix landed in Azkaban and eventually died, it is the reason Andromeda ran away with a muggleborn.

Andromeda does, however, have her grandson to keep her from sinking too deep into her own depression. Narcissa knows that Teddy would also help Harry if he ever visited, but the fact remains that Harry doesn't seem to be able to do anything besides drag himself through the floo to her kitchen every day. Adding even one more thing to his day might see Harry break and that is something Narcissa does not want.

Sometimes she feels like she's not doing all she can for Harry, but there's not much more she can do. She's tried thinking about it from every angle but she cannot find a way to help him that wouldn't push him too hard.

Draco is easier. She has more time to spend with Draco and it helps that they live together. Even if he was resentful of the few hours Harry spent with her that took her attention from him, Draco has always been more inclined to open up to her than to almost anyone else.

It was the same when her son was a child. He idolised his father, but Draco always adored Narcissa. It's one thing she's certain hasn't changed and she's never been more grateful. It allows her to be able to tell when her son has something he wishes to say but feels he cannot. It allows her to be able to coax the words from him without him getting too upset. It allows her, however much she may not want to, to be able to tell Draco what he needs to hear in order to help him grow.

And he is growing. He's accepted that the views she and Lucius pushed on him were terrible, he's accepted that people like Harry — and the Granger girl, however much Narcissa may not like her — are not only worthy of being magical but that it is also their right as much as it is his.

He also feels more comfortable in himself, Narcissa thinks. He told her that during his seventh year he'd kissed Theodore Nott and he didn't hate it.

"In fact," he'd said to her. "I think I liked it quite a bit."

That is not something he would ever have told her before the Dark Lord fell. It's not even something he would have said had Lucius escaped imprisonment. But it is a part of him and so Narcissa would work to accept it.

One thing that Narcissa has grown to loathe over the last few months is the fact that she can no longer go shopping for things herself. Andromeda offers to help, but she has a small child to look after and Narcissa doesn't want to put that extra burden on her. The elves are useful for things like food and potions, but unless they have a specific title, books are out of their range of expertise and clothes are far too much for them to handle.

She would owl order the things she needs, but the Malfoy name is not what it once was and Narcissa has discovered that order forms with her name on it have a tendency to get lost or disappear.

It wouldn't be so bad if Christmas were not six weeks away. Diagon Alley gets crowded around this time of year, and it will only get worse until the holiday season passes. She would have asked Harry if he was willing, but as he's not willing to do much more than come to the manor when he leaves his home, she doesn't think it's a good idea.

Narcissa spends her autumn worrying, and it's likely the winter will pass the same way.

* * *

Draco feels better than he has in years. He still hates that Potter is a part of his daily life; he still hates being stuck in this house and having to walk through hallways that are drenched in Dark magic; he still hates that he's not allowed to use magic at all, or brew potions above a first year's level, but he's in contact with his friends. He's exchanging owls with Theo and Pansy and he's learning from them what the world is like now for Slytherins outside the walls of his ancestral home.

Pansy told him that things were different, but she didn't explain how. She, like his mother, has been trying to keep the worst of it from him.

Theo doesn't, and it's possibly one of the reasons he preferred Theo over Pansy. Theo tells Draco that he is lucky, he kept his head down during the war and he doesn't look too much like his father. He tells Draco that he can walk down Diagon Alley without garnering a sideways glance as long as he's alone. With Pansy by his side, or with Gregory, Theo comes under as much scrutiny as the others.

Theo tells Draco that he's seen people spit on Pansy and throw hexes at her, all because she dared to think that one life wasn't worth the others that would have been lost if they kept fighting. He explains how, at Hogwarts, students and teachers both would pretend that the Slytherins weren't there. He tells Draco that even Granger and Weasley act like it, but to be fair, they're too wrapped up in each other without Potter around. He tells Draco that their ignoring of the Slytherins is less to do with politics and more that they're trying to forget what happened in the Great Hall and the corridors of the school, and the easiest way for them to do that is by snogging or studying.

Draco doesn't mention Potter or his mother to Theo. He wants to think that if no one else knows then it wouldn't have to be real. He does mention that he's allowed a single visitor as long as they owl the Aurors and let them know and he asks Theo if he'll visit over Christmas.

Six weeks before Christmas, Draco gets his own owl asking him to confirm he's happy for that visit and Draco writes back immediately.

When Theo's here, he'll hopefully be able to avoid Potter. He'll hopefully be able to hide them in his bedroom for a few hours while they wear themselves out. He thinks, if Theo wasn't going to continue whatever it was they had during the war, whatever it was that they didn't name, then he wouldn't have agreed to visit. But Theo's always been hard for Draco to read, and he doesn't want to think that he may be wrong, especially not after telling his mother about them.

Either way, in five weeks, Draco will finally see someone other than Potter and he finds that he's excited about it. Even if nothing happens, Theo is still his friend and Draco has always been a very social person.

It still confuses him that he's thinking so much about Potter these days, even when he tries not to. He puts it down to the intermittent dreams and seeing the git every day. It's not as often as he used to when they shared every meal and some classes, but it's enough that Potter is in his thoughts more often than not; that he has to  _ try _ to think of other things.

It was easier when he could bury himself in the books he'd taken from the library, looking for ways to get rid of the magical residue that still lingered oppressively in the house; but the Dark Magic Problem had an easier answer than he was expecting. 

All they had to do to dispel it was to use more benign or light magic in the house. The house-elves' magic was helping, but as it was caused by human magic, human magic was the best way to get rid of it. It probably wouldn't have been much of a problem if either Draco or his mother were allowed to  _ use _ magic. As it was, they would have to wait until his mother's six months of house arrest were up at the beginning of January before the miasma of fear and hate and hurt could be tackled, unless he could convince Potter to help out.

For now though, Draco thinks, and he studies, and he looks forward to Christmas.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, all my love and thanks go to the wonderful [Jeldenil](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jeldenil/pseuds/Jeldenil) and [Keyflight790](https://keyflight790.tumblr.com/) for helping me out with this chapter

The first time Harry misses a lunch with Narcissa, she tries not to worry. When he doesn't arrive the second day, she immediately sends him an owl. When no answer arrives upon her owl's return, Narcissa does something she had preferred to avoid; she owls Andromeda to check in on Harry. It’s an awful way to do things; it takes too long; it’s already four in the afternoon and Narcissa is more anxious than she's been since the end of the war.

When Andromeda finally gets back to Narcissa, she doesn't bother with an owl. Instead, the Floo flares to life and Narcissa, used to only Harry coming through the fireplace, finds her worry replaced with fear and a little bit of anger.

Andromeda fusses over Teddy as she steps out of the fireplace, using her wand to clean soot from their clothes and removing the safety covering from her grandson. Narcissa decides that letting her get settled would be a terrible thing, especially as visitors have to check with the Ministry first.

"What are you doing here?" Narcissa asks, keeping her voice down so not to disturb Teddy. "We're not allowed visitors without permission. Andromeda, you could get us thrown into Azkaban."

"Oh do be quiet, Narcissa," Andromeda says as she unwraps a shawl from around her shoulders and uses her wand to conjure a basket for Teddy.

The casual use of magic throws Narcissa for a few moments. Neither she nor Draco are allowed to use magic and Harry just generally doesn't use magic for a lot of things. Right on the heels of the thought about Harry is Narcissa's earlier concern. Andromeda answers the unspoken question as Narcissa sits.

"Harry should be fine."

The sentence alone is disquieting.

"He hasn't been eating properly and nowhere near enough. The healer who saw him thinks he may be doing it on purpose."

"That's ridiculous." Narcissa doesn't know why she's so sure about that, but she knows that Harry wouldn't starve himself deliberately.

"I know. I told them that too." Andromeda moves her eyes from Teddy as she looks at her sister properly for the first time in over twenty years.

Narcissa does the same and notices that while her sister is still as beautiful as she's ever been, grief has dulled the shine in her eyes and etched the lines across her face more deeply than she had expected. She doesn't expect Andromeda to do much more, but when her sister reaches across the space between their chairs to touch her hair, to push it out of her face, Narcissa feels like years and various attitudes and family have been crossed to bring them both to this moment.

"They don't want him staying alone for now," Andromeda says, as if the moment that had just passed between them wasn't life-changing. "I've moved him to my home for tonight. There's not much he can say or do about it while he's unconscious, though I expect I'll hear about it tomorrow when he wakes up."

"What else did the healer say?"

The look Andromeda gives her is one Narcissa had never seen before.

"They won't know anything more until he wakes up. All they can do until then is take what I've said and hope that it helps."

Narcissa feels like a weight has been lifted from her shoulders. She may not have convinced Harry to go anywhere just yet, but now the healers know, they could help too. And Andromeda, assuming Harry doesn't move straight back into the Black Mausoleum the next day.

"I've been so worried about him," Narcissa says, wiping at the tears that have gathered in her eyes. "Every day he comes here and he looks worse than before. He doesn't eat much unless I distract him and he's always so quiet now."

"You never really knew him before the war, Cissy," Andromeda says. "Harry's always cared more about what he can do for other people than what he can do for himself."

"I know that he's never had a chance to grieve for what he lost," Narcissa tells her. "I know that he grew up thinking his parents were drunk and died because of their own stupidity, not because someone evil decided that they needed to die." She pauses for a moment. She knows a lot about Harry's past because he prefers to talk about that rather than the things that hurt him now. He prefers to pretend like his childhood doesn't affect him.

* * *

The realisation that Harry doesn't even know the day of the week is what wakes him to the realisation that he is no longer at Grimmauld Place.

He wants to thrash and scream and  _ fight _ against the feeling that he is locked in a cell.

Harry opens his eyes slowly and finds himself in a room filled with pale golds and light purples. It is a room, even if he didn't know the truth of it, that says 'Nymphadora Tonks once stayed here. She made it her own.’

He's not sure how long he's spent looking around the room from his place on the bed, but he doesn't get up. He barely moves, knowing that to do so will take more strength than he thinks he has right now.

The flaring of the fireplace in another room breaks him from his thoughts about the bedroom as he abruptly thinks that if this is Tonks's room, then he must be at Andromeda's. The panic has barely set in before Harry hears the click of heels on hardwood flooring in what may be a hallway outside the door.

Andromeda doesn't knock. She simply strolls in to the bedroom, as if it's her right to be there, which Harry thinks, it is.

"I wasn't expecting you to be awake just yet," Andromeda says as she looks him over.

The look in her eye is one that Harry doesn't know how to interpret. He's struck, quickly and harshly, by the realisation that he's only ever met Andromeda a few times in his life. Most of their correspondence has been by letter.

"What day is it?" Harry asks. He hopes that the simple question doesn't alert Andromeda to how scared he is right now. He doesn't remember passing out, and he definitely doesn't remember being brought here.

Andromeda sighs at him before flicking her wand and conjuring a chair. She takes her time sitting and making herself comfortable before she looks at him and Harry thinks he can see a bit of fear and a lot of anger in her eyes.

"It's November 25th, Wednesday." She folds her hands on her lap, something Harry's seen Narcissa do when she's about to say something Draco won't like."What's the last thing you remember?"

"Yesterday morning." Harry doesn't want to go into this but he knows that Andromeda will try to pry it out of him, and if she doesn't, then Narcissa will the next time he sees her. He feels his stomach drop when he thinks that he's probably only alive now because of Narcissa.  _ Again. _ "I woke up, Kreacher gave me coffee, I showered and then..."  _ And then nothing _ , he wants to say.  _ And then I woke up in a room I don't recognise that brought all the pain I've been avoiding to the front of my mind and I'm too weak to get away from it. _

"Narcissa contacted me today, Harry. You didn't show up at the Manor yesterday or today and she was worried." Andromeda pauses, and the silence feels heavy. "The Healer that saw you said you're lucky to be alive. Your magic was probably the reason you fainted, and it kept you unconscious until the healer could give you a potion. He said you'd probably be out until tomorrow but he'll be here to see you then."

Harry looks away from Andromeda and up at the ceiling. The textured ceiling seems to sparkle slightly to him, and it bothers him how little he cares if that's his own perception of it or if it's really covered in glitter. He doesn't say anything. He doesn't have the words to tell Andromeda that he feels a bit ungrateful that he woke up. He doesn't know how to tell her that he resents Narcissa contacting her about him; that he wishes he hadn't kept up with the daily visits.

He's glad of it too though, in a way. He's never been the sort of person to roll over and accept things and dying because of his own stupidity would be rolling over and accepting that Voldemort is ruining his life from beyond the grave.

"I'm afraid you and Teddy will be on similar diets for a while," Andromeda says. "The healer said that if you woke before he arrived I should give you milk or maybe some broth, but you'll mostly be eating soft things and drinking milk so you don't get ill."

"I..." He doesn't know what to say. The idea that Andromeda will be taking care of him makes him feel like he'd be happier just to go home.

"Just milk for now, then you can rest and we can see what the Healer has to say tomorrow, yes?"

Once again, Harry doesn't answer. Right now, Andromeda's reminding him far too much of Mrs. Weasley with a heavy dose of Narcissa's grace and elegance. It's startling and a part of him feels like he doesn't deserve these people's care and attention, but Harry pushes that feeling aside to explore when he's on his own.

A startled cry from the sitting room has Andromeda jumping up. "I'll be back soon, Harry," she says. "Just rest for now."

Harry continues to stare at the ceiling as he listens to Andromeda talk and sing to Teddy. He feels tears welling in his eyes and he pulls off his glasses to rub at them, to deny the tears the relief of falling. He throws his glasses on to the nightstand on one side of the bed and, deciding he can't stand to look at the room anymore, rolls to face the wall.

It was a bad choice.

There's another nightstand at this side, standing between the bed and the wall. Other than the lamp, there's just a photo frame on it. He can't see the details, but he can discern pink hair next to sandy-blond. He can see a small body cradled between the two adults and he watches as orange hair changes to turquoise before the loop of the photo restarts.

It's a picture of a family that was torn apart because he was too slow to do the one thing he was supposed to do. Harry's breath comes out raggedly, he feels like he's exhaling razor blades. For once, he doesn't try to brush away tears but he lets them fall. He tastes them on his lips as he thinks about Tonks and Remus and Teddy.

Teddy, who is a room away. Teddy, who Harry has still never met. Teddy, who is Harry's godson.

Harry lets the tears fall and lets a choked sob rise from his throat. For the first time he can remember, Harry lets himself grieve.

* * *

Draco hasn't been truly angry with Potter in weeks. He'd almost began to think that they'd formed a tentative truce based around the fact that they both kept his mother happy.

He'd been frustrated with his dreams and with Potter's stupid face whenever he went to the kitchen when Potter was there, but those were his issues, nothing really to do with Potter. It wasn't Potter's fault that in Draco's dreams he was smaller and thinner than he actually was; though it may be Potter's fault that he's smaller and thinner in real life than Draco's ever seen him.

Whatever their brief truce had been, however, is shattered when Draco enters the kitchen a little before dinner to see his mother with tears rolling down her pale face. She doesn't say a word but Draco knows it had something to do with Potter.

He wraps his mother in a hug; he tries not to let his anger show. He reminds himself that he doesn't know what's happened yet and he should reserve judgement.

It doesn't stop him from wanting to tear Potter limb from limb for making his mother cry.

He's the first to admit that he's not sure what their relationship consists of besides Potter's attraction to her and her completely stupid idea that they owe Potter whatever he wants. Draco was fine with it, mostly, even if seeing Potter kiss his mother's cheek made him want to break whatever he was holding.

He is still stupidly jealous of Potter, and old enough now that he can admit it to himself, but the idea that Harry Potter, the Chosen One, would choose to spend his free time with a Death Eater's wife for no reason that Draco could see annoys him.

He doesn't speak as his mother cries, he just keeps his arms wrapped around her shoulders, like she did for him as a child when he scraped his knees. There are no words of comfort or shushing sounds, but at least she doesn't have Lucius standing in the doorway telling her to pull herself together.

When she pulls back, after the tears have run their course, she smiles at Draco. It's half-hearted and more than a little sad, but it's still a smile.

"My sister was here," Narcissa says without preamble, and Draco thinks that maybe his anger at Potter was misplaced, until his mother speaks again. "She's taken Harry to her home for him to recover. He's not been looking after himself."

"And of course, Boy Wonder doesn't care who he hurts with his neglect, does he?" Draco can almost taste the bitterness in his voice. "Honestly, Mother, I don't know why you've bothered to let him keep coming here. You said he needs tea and someone to talk to, but he never talks about anything that could help. He needs a bloody mind healer, not you worrying about him when there's nothing you can do."

"Draco—"

"No, mother." Draco's furious. He hates that he and his mother are stuck in some halfway place between imprisonment and freedom. He hates that Potter was the one that put them here; he hates that Potter doesn't care enough about his mother to look after himself properly. "You've done what you can for him and he doesn't care. Let the bastard kill himself if that's what he wants to do but don't let him pull whatever life is left in you out with him."

He doesn't let his mother answer before he stalks from the room. He's barely a few feet from the door when he turns to rest his head against the wall. His only real thought at the moment is how he wants Theo to be here so he can get his anger out in a way that's, if not useful, at the very least, pleasant for him.

 


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many thanks to my betas, [Jeldenil](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jeldenil/pseuds/Jeldenil) and [Keyflight790](https://keyflight790.tumblr.com/) with a special thanks to [Taylor](https://archiveofourown.org/users/spaceaas) for doing a final check. 
> 
> All my love and gratitude also goes to anyone who's read this so far or commented or kudosed, because I'm lax in answering comments but I honestly appreciate all of them so much.

Harry wakes from his first night at Andromeda's feeling a little lighter than he did before. He knows Hermione told him that crying is supposed to be therapeutic, but he never really believed her. He pushes himself into a sitting position with his back against Tonks’s headboard and looks properly at the photo that provoked his tears.

It must have been one of the first photos of them as a family. Harry ignores the voice in his mind that tells him it was probably one of the last, too. Tonks looks radiant, despite also looking exhausted, and Harry feels like parts of his heart are chipping off the longer he looks at it. He doesn't remember ever seeing Remus look as happy as he does in the photo. He's staring at Teddy with wonder and awe and that, more than anything, makes Harry feel guilty about keeping himself locked away from everyone.

He puts the photo back face down on the nightstand, and once more looks around the room. The desk beneath the window is covered in papers; a bookshelf in the corner has more photographs. There's a plant in the windowsill, and now that Harry's concentrating properly, he can see that the pale gold that swirls across the lilac walls are not swirls at all.

They're drawings.

There's a dragon next to her wardrobe and writing that he can't make out. A badger takes up most of the wall on one side of the window andthe other side has flowers and butterflies. Near the top of that wall is what could be the ridge of a mountain. The wall next to the bed is decorated with a beautiful wolf, one with a distinctly shorter snout and eyes that look almost human.

The reminder that Tonks had a life that Harry didn't know about, the reminder that she loved people he didn’t even know breaks Harry's heart all over again. There are still so many people alive who miss her, who would want her back. Harry himself thinks that it would be better if she were here.

Harry pulls his knees up to his chest and rests his forehead on them. He didn't ask for this. He doesn't know why he was the only one worthy of a second chance.

For the second time in less than twelve hours, Harry lets his tears fall.

He's not sure how long he sits with his back against a wall and his head on his knees, but eventually he hears a light knock on the door before it opens and Andromeda steps into the room. Harry doesn't look up but he hears her put something down on the nightstand and feels her arms wrap around him. He lets out a sob and he can feel himself shaking as he lets years worth of grief roll through him.

He clings desperately to Andromeda's arms as she speaks, but her words fall on deaf ears. He feels like his head is filled with cotton wool. The only thing that makes it through the haze in his mind is that Andromeda doesn't smell right.

It's not until the tears and shaking have stopped that Harry lifts his head. Andromeda hands him a glass of water and he sips it slowly as he tries to figure out why it felt off to cry with her. He thinks about the scent of her perfume because that was what made it feel wrong. He thinks about how Hermione, and Andromeda, and even Mrs Weasley prefer floral fragrances. And then he realises that Narcissa doesn't.

When he thinks about Narcissa, he thinks about fruity scents, oranges, and blackcurrant. It's what made the hug, the comfort Andromeda gave him, seem wrong and when he thinks on it a little more, he realises it's because he's kept himself closed off from almost everyone else since the Battle.

"I'm sorry." The words scratch at his throat, but Harry forces them out. "I'm sorry. I've been a mess."

"Hush, now," Andromeda says. "It isn't your fault you're upset, Harry, but it is up to you to get better now that you know there's something wrong."

Harry nods and brushes more tears from his cheeks. "Who else knows?" he asks.

"I expect Ron and Hermione have some idea, even if they don't know the whys and the wherefores about it all." Andromeda hands him a glass of milk and lets him drink it in silence before she speaks again. "The healer will be here soon. Do you need help getting to the bathroom to clean yourself up a little, or would you prefer to wait until he's gone, and have a proper bath then?"

Harry thinks about it for a few minutes, longer than he should need to, really, when all he's doing is deciding if he should bathe or not, and finally shakes his head.

"I think I just want to lie down for a while until he gets here."

Andromeda helps him to shuffle down the bed so that his head is on a pillow again and tucks him in. It's only the second time in his life he can remember someone doing that and it causes tears to spill once more from beneath his closed eyelids.

"Rest now, Harry," she says as she brushes his hair from his face and drops a kiss on his forehead. "You're safe now."

It's the first time he's felt safe in years, if he's being honest. Harry pulls the covers over his head and breathes in the scent of the lavender clothes softener as he wonders, not for the first time, if this is what it would have been like to have a mother.

Harry doesn't really sleep, but as he drifts in and out of awareness, he hears Andromeda singing from a distance. He thinks about Ron and Hermione and all they went through together and how he felt in the weeks after the war when they seemed to fall into their relationship so easily, while he struggled to feel any sort of connection to Ginny at all. As much as he hates to think about it, he hates how much of a failure he feels solely because he hasn't found the person he wants to settle down with yet, even though he's only eighteen and could live for a century or more yet.

He wishes, not for the first time, that he could take his feelings of hatred, and anger, and jealousy and simply throw them away. He doesn't want to be bitter, but his negative feelings are all he has left right now and he hates that more than anything. Worse, he knows if he told Hermione this, either in a letter or in person, she'd tell him he has nothing to be bitter about, that he should be happy now, and part of him thinks that's the cause of his refusal to reply to her letters. She probably thinks his life is as normal as it’s ever been, probably better now he doesn’t have hateful muggles or a murderous Dark Lord after him.

Andromeda's light knock breaks him from his reverie and she enters the room with a healer clad in green robes.

"Harry, this is Healer Jenkins," Andromeda tells him. "He's been my personal Healer for many years."

"Pleasure to meet you, Mr Potter," Healer Jenkins says as he holds out his hand for Harry to shake. "What has Mrs Tonks told you about why I'm here?"

Harry pushes himself into a sitting position once more. "She said I nearly died." That's still hard for him to think about. "She said my magic had shut my body down until someone could help me."

"That's a bit over-simplified, but essentially correct, yes. Your magic put you into stasis until it felt you were safe again." The Healer pulls a pen from his pocket, along with a pair of glasses, a notebook, and his wand. "My main concern is that you stopped eating deliberately, but Mrs Tonks tells me that you wouldn't do that and had no reason to."

"She's right," Harry says. He doesn't want this Healer to think of him as someone who would starve themselves, he remembers seeing Aunt Petunia watching a TV show about anorexia and heard her telling his Uncle about how  _ 'silly girls who have no trouble in life would do anything for attention' _ and as much as he hates it, some things the Dursleys said had stuck with him.

"Do you know why you stopped eating then?"

Harry carefully folds his hands in his lap, on top of the covers that hide his legs. He looks at his hands and realises how thin they are. He knows that it's something that would be evident all over his body if he cared to look.

"I've never had a good relationship with food," he begins. The thought crosses his mind about how far he should go into his own background, but the words leave his mouth before he has time to think them through. "My aunt and uncle would deny me food as punishment when I was a child. I learned to do what was asked of me on very little food, and when I got older, it was easy for me to just forget to eat. Since... Since the end of the war, I forget a lot and when I do remember, I can't eat much."

He listens to the scratching of the Healer's pen on paper. He answers the Healer's questions as thoroughly as he can, even when they make no sense to him. Questions about his life growing up, questions about his health as a child and as a teenager, questions about the support he received after the multitude of deaths in his life. Andromeda excused herself fairly early on, after the first or second question, Harry doesn't know why and, more importantly, he doesn't care. Talking about everything is a kind of catharsis he has never experienced before and although he feels drained afterwards, he also feels lighter.

"I have several potions I'd like you to take for now, Harry," Healer Jenkins says. "One is to help you gain weight again and to increase your appetite, the other is an antidepressant and mood stabiliser. I don't think you'd argue with me if I told you that you seem to be depressed."

Harry shakes his head. He won’t argue, but he doesn't have to like it either.

"The final thing I'd like to tell you is that I'm a registered Mind Healer and that I'd like to see you in that capacity. Potions help, but they only help the symptoms. With problems like depression, it's important to deal with the cause as well. Would you agree to that?"

Harry doesn't look up, but he nods. He's known for a while he needs more help than Narcissa can give him, even if he doesn't want it.

"Excellent. I'll let Mrs Tonks know what potions you're taking and for the next few days I want you to take it easy, no getting out of bed unless it's to use the bathroom; no magic unless it's vital. You need to give yourself a chance to recover properly." He stands and looks down at Harry. Harry can see from the corner of his eye that his expression is dour and he feels like the Healer has something else he wants to say. Whatever it is, though, goes unsaid as the Healer leaves the room, but not before dropping two phials of potion on the nightstand.

Harry waits until he hears the door click shut and lies down, rolling over so he can look once more at the picture of Tonks, and Remus, and Teddy.

* * *

Narcissa waits.

She waits for an owl, or the flaring of the Floo to tell her how Harry is, and if he's still alive.

She waits for the fear to pass, ignoring the fact that she has felt like this only once before, when her son was in a castle while a battle raged.

She waits with poise and dignity; sipping her morning tea and acting like nothing is out of the ordinary.

She wonders when it was that Harry Potter wormed her way into a part of her heart that was only ever occupied by her son.

She wonders how long Harry would have been unconscious for before being found, had she not got in touch with Andromeda.

She promises herself, as she sips on a cup of Earl Grey, that she will make amends with her sister properly, and that she will try harder to get Harry to open up to others.

She buries her face in her hands and heaves a dry breath as she tries to remember that Harry is safe now, even if she cannot go to him and see for herself. She knows Andromeda is with him. She hopes Andromeda will keep him safe.

She doesn't cry. She shows no more outward signs of her worry than she already has. She tells herself that there is just one more month of no magic, no travelling, no potions. She tries not to think - it doesn't go well.

* * *

Draco seals the letter he's written to Theo and looks at the clock on the mantle of his fireplace. On a normal day, Potter would be arriving shortly. It is not a normal day. Potter hasn't been here for three days. He's  _ ill. _ He's neglecting himself and he doesn't care who he hurts in the process.

If Draco were allowed to leave the Manor, he'd probably head for wherever Potter's hiding and shout at him, hit him, hurt him as much as he hurt Draco's mother.

And when he was done, Draco would have to thank him for bringing his wayward aunt back into his mother's life.

He wishes he had a pensive, so he could take out the memory of last night, when he stood by his bedroom door in the early hours of the morning and listened to his mother cry about something she couldn't change. He wants to show Potter how his mother tried to put on a smile for him only to break down when he was out of sight. He's almost happy they can't use magic because if they could, he'd have never known, and it makes him wonder how often she did the same thing during the war.

Draco has wanted to hurt Potter in the past, but never like this. He wants to tell the arrogant git that he may have grown up without people caring for him but that doesn't mean it's still true. In the past, he used his words and his wand to hurt people. Now, he wants to use his hands.

He wants to feel Potter's face crushed beneath his fists; he wants to be close enough that Potter's blood will stain his skin. He wants to warn the bastard, when he stops hitting him, that the next time he won't go easy on him.

He wants to take the violence he never had as a Death Eater and use it to show Potter just how much of a mistake hurting Narcissa Black Malfoy is.

But he knows he can't. And that's the worst part.

His mother will forgive Potter the next time he stops by, and Draco's anger will go unquenched.

He wishes it was Christmas already. A bout of angry sex with a good-looking man would bleed off some of his anger in a better, more productive way.

For now, though, Draco sits in his room and stews in it.

 


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ooof this is late. December will be busy for me friends, so there'll only be two updates this month, one now and one just before Christmas. 
> 
> As always, all my thanks to my betas, [Jeldenil](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jeldenil/pseuds/Jeldenil) and [Keyflight790](https://keyflight790.tumblr.com/) and to you all, my commenters, and kudos-leavers. You are a joy and I appreciate you all.

The next few weeks pass slowly for Narcissa. She receives regular owls from both Harry and Andromeda, letting her know how Harry's fairing, but she gets no more visits from either of them. Harry's letters promise that as soon as he's allowed to leave Andromeda's he'll visit, but Narcissa always tells him that his health is more important than him being able to come for tea.

She's taken to spending her days in the sunroom at the south side of the manor. The gardens outside are mostly barren, not that she could go out there, but the small flowerbeds filled with hellebores and camellias give some colour to the wasteland that the manor becomes in winter.

She doesn't want Draco to know, but she's started taking a splash of Lucius's favourite scotch in her Earl Grey in the afternoons. It helps settle her nerves and her worry; it helps block the feeling that she's doing nothing of use for anyone.

Try as she may, Narcissa cannot get over the fact that Harry seems to be doing better under her sister's care than he did under her own. Harry writes to tell Narcissa about his godson, Teddy, and how much he loves him now that he's finally met him. He writes about how he regrets not meeting Teddy earlier. He tells her how he's started crawling, and how he seems to love climbing all over Harry.

He says nothing of his own health. He says nothing of his friends. The closest he comes to it is in his first letter, when he mentioned that the Healer he saw provided a few potions to help him.

The details about that, Narcissa got from Andromeda. Andromeda talks as much about Teddy as Harry does, though her letters are twice as long because she also talks as much about Harry as well. She doesn't go into details about what Harry has said when he's with his healer, but she makes rather pointed remarks about how she just wants an hour alone with Harry's relatives. That's enough for Narcissa to understand that whatever Harry's problems are now, they started with the muggles he calls family.

While Narcissa spends most of her day in the sunroom, she notices that Draco is spending more time in the library or in his room. When they eat dinner together, Draco talks almost nonstop about Theodore Nott and how excited he is to see him again come Christmas.

He mentions that he also wrote to Pansy once, but the owl returned with the letter unopened.

He says it casually, but Narcissa can tell that it hurt more than just his pride to have one of his oldest friends ignore him. As much as she hates it, the families that were in their social circle will all try to distance themselves from the Malfoy name for a while yet. It was only when she said as much to Draco while he spoke, that she realised how much he'd grown, despite them being under house arrest. She would have expected him to complain, or to tell her how it wasn't fair. Instead, he'd nodded and said he understood.

In the evenings, after dinner, Narcissa almost always retires to her suite of rooms. They are not the rooms she shared with Lucius while they were trying for a child, nor are they the rooms she brought lovers to after Draco had gone to school. They are the rooms where she is free to be herself, with no expectations placed upon her and no one watching, waiting for her to fail.

It is in these rooms that Narcissa lets down the mask she wears in polite society. She allows the facade to crumble as she wishes that her son will be able to live a better life. It is in this room that Narcissa makes plans; where she questions how she can make the future bright for both Draco and Harry.

While she's unsure what Draco intends to do with his life after his sentence is over, she knows that he will need some of the best scoring N.E.W.T.s to stand a chance of getting anywhere. She looks over his O.W.L. scores and tries to figure out which subjects he would excel in while unable to use magic at home.

Arithmancy and Ancient Runes would be good; they would keep him occupied for a long time. Especially if he needed to look up other things to help him work things out. Now would also be a good time for him to go through the theory of the subjects he wasn't as good at, like Charms.

Narcissa felt her lip curl as she remembered Lucius's reaction to the sole A on Draco's O.W.L.s. As if it wasn't bad enough that he'd always pressured their son when it came to his regular marks in school, and him being beaten in most classes by a ‘mudblood’, Lucius had acted like an A was the worst thing his son could do.

"You're lucky," Lucius had said, "that the Dark Lord does not take school marks into account when recruiting."

Narcissa's understanding, however, was that he'd gotten rather good at charms in the year that followed. He'd had to in order to fix the Cabinet.

She sits and looks out at the grounds, her thoughts a swirling rip tide, pulling her further away from her original questions about both her son and Harry.

She knows that in order for Draco to have the best chances when he's released from his house arrest, she will need to lay the groundwork. She knows that in order for Harry's mental health to improve, he needs to push the limits he currently has.

She also knows that if she's seen often in the company of Harry, the  _ Daily Prophet  _ will imply that she, and by association, her family, are using him to look better in the eyes of the public.

The _ Daily Prophet _ will also print what they wish, regardless of the truth of the matter.

If Narcissa is seen with Harry, they'll say she's using him. If she appears alone, she will likely be cursed by people who think her sentence was too lenient. If she's seen with her sister, people may be divided on if she's trying to get into others' good graces or if Andromeda was on the "right" side all along. It will not matter to them that she lost her Muggleborn husband and halfblood daughter in the war; Andromeda is a Black and she will be tarred with that brush until the moment she takes her last breath.

The fact that Draco's closest friend is a Slytherin with a Death Eater father will also be against him. Harry's reclusiveness since the war's end will mean his first appearances in public will send people clamouring.

It is times like these when Narcissa could happily strangle her husband. Instead, she sips her whiskey-laced tea, and she plans.

* * *

Draco sits at the desk in his bedroom and reads.

He has done barely anything else in the last few weeks.

Potter has not visited the Manor, and Draco hopes this means he's not going to walk into his kitchen for lunch and see him there again. He spoke with his mother about him, and she tried to remove the blinkers he's had where Potter's concerned. He thinks he understands her attachment, however stupid he thinks it is.

She is thinking like a Slytherin, something he has never done a lot of. She says their family will be redeemed more easily if Potter is on their side. She also says it won't actually  _ be _ easy.

Draco didn't understand it at first. When she told him that public perception will change for them based on them being seen with Potter, he thought people would see through it. He didn't say as much to her, but he wrote to Theo about it.

Theo had always been quieter than the others in their year. He kept out of the spotlight, neither engaging in inner-house quarrels for dominance, nor picking fights with people in other houses. He'd kept his head down and, as such, he went mostly unnoticed by almost everyone until the end of Fifth Year when his father, along with Draco's, was caught at the Ministry.

His letters to Theo fill up a lot of his day. When he's not writing to him, he's rereading the ones Theo has sent him. Some of them are filled with gossip from Hogwarts and wishes that the holidays would come already. Others, the ones Draco rereads in bed at night, are filled with sexual innuendo, and sometimes are just outright dirty talk. They leave Draco wishing the Christmas holidays were here too.

The rest of his day is spent looking through the library for anything that looks interesting.

He's already read books about potion-making and techniques, and learned a few things that Severus hadn't got around to teaching him. The single Transfiguration book he looked at was so far over his head that he'd put it back after realising he needed at least three other books to understand it.

He practices his Arithmancy and works on translating a book that is written in runes, but neither of them really keep him interested.

He thinks he's hit the jackpot, however, when he finds a book title  _ Esoteric Magick: The Failure Of Framing _ . He doesn't know what the title means really, but the introduction makes it sound interesting. The binding is older than a lot of the books his father allowed him to look at; that makes him think that the book is probably not Ministry-Approved. That doesn't bother Draco too much, though, as he's not allowed to use magic at all, and all he's doing is learning magical theory.

His father was never really interested in teaching him more than the basics of magical theory. Draco thinks it's mostly because when you get past the basics, most of the books that are legal wash everything down to nothing. The illegal books, however, are at least a hundred years old, and despite Lucius owning several books that age and older, Draco has never seen him read them.

_ Esoteric Magick _ explains that spells that need an emotional component are often taught using "framing". Draco has to double check what framing means in this context but he understands it as soon as he sees it. The Patronus charm calls for a happy emotion; Boggart repelling calls for amusement.  _ Esoteric Magick _ says that this is a crutch that makes your spell casting weaker. Draco is fascinated.

He reads the book cover to cover, then reads it again in case he missed something. The weeks he spends going over the book bleed together, and although Draco does other things too, sometimes he comes back to the book to reread certain parts.

By the time he's read his fill of it, there's only a few days left until the Christmas holidays for Hogwarts students.

He never stops dreaming about Potter, but he stops thinking about those dreams while he's awake. He doesn't need reminders of almost burning, of flying out of Death's jaws on a broom behind Potter. He doesn't need a reminder about how close they were to the Dark Lord's ultimate rule when he announced Potter's death to the defenders of the school. He doesn't need reminders about how Potter looked tinier the last time Draco saw him compared to that final battle.

He stops thinking about Potter at all, except for when he sees his mother in her sunroom, drinking tea and gazing out at her gardens. He just wishes that if the bastard was going to do this to her, that he'd stayed out of their lives after the trials.

On December 18th, Draco gets a letter from Theo that contains just two words.

_ 'I'm home.' _

Draco smiles to himself, before he heads to the sunroom to let his mother know they'll be having a visitor. He can't wait.

* * *

Harry sits on the sofa in Andromeda's small sitting room with Teddy on his lap and a soft smile on his face. He listens to his godson babble while Andromeda fixes lunch for them, and he tries to remember what was going through his head every time he turned Andromeda's letters away.

His daily sessions with Healer Jenkins have dropped down to three a week now. He told Harry that he didn't want him living alone in case he fell back into bad habits, but Harry told him that he'd only be staying with Andromeda until the New Year regardless.

This had caused Andromeda to ask him questions Harry never wanted to answer, like if he felt he was intruding, if there was anything she could do to help him feel more at home. It had taken Harry a while to explain that he never really had his own space growing up and that now he needs it.

"Besides," he'd said, "I'm already a lot better than I was." He puts off any other discussion about him moving back to Grimmauld Place by playing with Teddy, watching his hair turn from a faded orange that reminds Harry of Ron's Chudley Canons posters, to a deep, inky black, that curls and swoops, just like Harry's own.

Like this, Harry can almost believe that he's not broken. Teddy is the proof that he can love someone and have them love him unconditionally in return, and that helps Harry so much more than he is willing to admit.

He looks up at Andromeda when she sets a tea tray on the coffee table. "I'd like to be able to visit Narcissa again," Harry says as she sits. He watches her seemingly ignore him, while she makes the tea for them both. A month or so ago, he would have wondered what he had done to get that reaction; now he's aware that Andromeda will often finish what she is doing before she begins to speak. She told him it was so she had time for her thoughts to form properly, Harry thinks it's more to do with the remnants of her Pureblood upbringing, because he remembers Narcissa doing the same thing, though she was a bit better at keeping his attention while she did it.

"Are you sure that's wise, Harry?" Andromeda asks. Harry must have an outraged expression on his face because before he can answer, she quickly speaks again. "I know my sister helped you. I know she was the one who realised there was something wrong last month, but Harry, she was brought up to manipulate things to her advantage all the time. Did you never think that maybe if she or Draco were seen with you outside the confines of her home that the press wouldn't pick up on it?"

"It's not like that," Harry mutters as he clutches Teddy closer to him. "Even if it were, it doesn't matter. Narcissa never did anything wrong during the war; she saved my life."

"So she could see her son," Andromeda says. "She didn't do it out of the goodness of her heart, Harry."

"Andi." Harry looks at her and wonders when he became so desperate for someone to understand. "She must have known at that point that if I lived, there was a chance Voldemort could be killed. If she had just told him I was still alive, he'd probably have kept casting curses at me until I'd died anyway and then marched onto the castle. She may have lied just so she could see Draco, but her reasons don't mean so much when they lead to the end of the battle."

Andromeda huffs, and Harry hopes this is the last time they have a conversation about motivations against choices.

"When?" she asks, picking up her teacup and taking a sip.

"Before Christmas," Harry says with a small smile. "Maybe Friday?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The book _Esoteric Incantations_ is based on a book with a similar name from the [Sarcasm and Slytherin series](https://archiveofourown.org/series/863648) by [Sunnmoonandstars](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunmoonandstars/pseuds/sunmoonandstars) and has been used with permission.


End file.
